


A Collaborative Condition

by innie



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fandom Trumps Hate, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-02-26 23:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: Ten years after they were knighted, Roxy and Eggsy keep getting paired up on undercover assignments.  They aren't best friends for nothing.





	A Collaborative Condition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mepeters81](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mepeters81/gifts).



> For my Fandom Trumps Hate high bidder, mepeters81, whose generosity inspired me. Title from Tracy K. Smith's poem "The Everlasting Self." (I was picturing Lana Condor as Eve.)

"Rox!" Eggsy's happy shout echoes down the corridor and she finds herself smiling at the sound of it, because her best friend is basically the personification of good cheer even after all these years. Ten years they've been Kingsmen and he's still an estates lad at heart, doesn't feel entirely comfortable in a suit. Good thing, because he starts running and slides the last few metres on the knees of his trackies, coming to a stop right at the toes of her oxfords. He gets one foot on the ground but stays on his other knee to present her with a small box of navy-blue velvet. It opens on silent hinges and inside is the gorgeous band he's offered her so many times before, a small circlet of pavé-set diamonds that glitter even in the unflattering HQ light.

"Oh, Eggsy," she says, knowing the words are exactly what another woman might say when looking down at a stunner of a ring and, behind that, a pair of blue-green eyes that sparkle even more than the diamonds. Her tone, though, isn't one of rapturous disbelief — it's just regular, exasperated disbelief. "Again?" All these years of working together, and this will be the _tenth time_ she and Eggsy have been paired up as a couple. (Granted, they work well together, and have developed a very useful shorthand with each other, but can no one at Kingsman envision any other possible couples?)

Evidently, Merlin cannot, at least not whilst Eggsy is goading him on, whispering who knows what kind of encouragement into his ear. (Everybody knows that Merlin, for all that he is scrupulously fair and never plays favourites, truly smiles only for Eggsy.) And Eggsy is still on his knee before her and now wearing a sincere — and sincerely maddening — grin. "C'mon, Rox! Make me the happiest man on earth all over again?"

She groans and kicks lightly at his defenceless shin even as she holds her hand out obligingly. The ring, as always, fits like a glove, and she does like the way it looks on her hand. Funny how her taste in jewellery hasn't changed in a decade. "What's the mission?" she asks, but Eggsy is a ham to the end and wants to kiss her cheek and embrace her tightly and can only be got to stop when she mercilessly deploys her fingers to his armpit and tickles until he's red in the face and his eyes are streaming tears.

"I give! I give!" he gasps, and she pulls her hand back, satisfied. "Geli should be warned about this mean streak of yours, Rox."

"She knows." She won't deny there's more than a little smugness in her tone; Eve is almost comically beautiful, has the devil's own nerve when driving, and is _all hers_ despite whatever failings she might have.

"Yeah, bet she loves it," Eggsy says, unrepentant. "C'mon, off to save the world again, love."

*

The suspect is named Garrard Bishop. Poor marks from primary school on, lucky to have his elder brothers' company to hire him on after dropping out even if they were only coordinating deliveries of discount (possibly stolen) electronics. Garrard learnt the ropes and then started his own company, this time handling high-end goods, not getting in his brothers' way.

"Only while his brothers got big, he got _suspiciously_ big," Eggsy says, half informing her and half building a picture for himself out of whatever scraps Merlin mentioned when they were locked in one of their bizarre bonding rituals. She's frankly surprised Harry has no problem with his lover being so unabashedly close with Merlin, but she's not about to ask the former Galahad to explain himself to her. Eggsy, meanwhile, has no discretion, God knows, but also seems not to be able to find the words to describe his bond with their former trainer whenever she very delicately approaches the subject, and Merlin has mostly retired from active handling to concentrate on research and development, so her opportunities to quiz him are limited. (Also, she's never quite recovered from his NLP course, and how her whole body tingled when she was the focus of that arresting gaze, so interrogating him is not something she's rushing to do.)

"Garrard, Romney, Herbert, and Quincy Bishop," Merlin says, a caption appearing under the photograph on the mirror that doubles as a screen in the main briefing room. Garrard has a roundish face with incongruously narrow features that give him a vaguely intellectual appearance. His brothers look much the same, just older, darker-eyed, and darker-skinned. "Garrard's acquisition of wealth has been nearly in lockstep with payments made by certain illegitimate governments for weapons of dubious origin. Bors has been tracing the accounts for quite some time."

"How are we to proceed?" she asks Arthur while Eggsy and Merlin have some sort of silent conversation with their eyes.

Arthur signals that Merlin should put up the next image, and it's of Garrard and his sweetheart, beaming at the camera. "Bishop recently got engaged to a girl from his old estate, Naomi Lewis." If the pair of them are from the estates, and only a few years younger, then Eggsy will most likely be sticking to his London roots, the better to become their natural confidant. Surely she will not be expected to mimic Eggsy's awful accent from when he first wandered into Kingsman as a candidate or — even worse — seduce Garrard? There's no reading some of Arthur's more cryptic gestures.

"And we are to break them up?" she asks, trying to keep her patience by remembering that Eggsy has had some say in this mission and that Merlin would never set himself up to be on the receiving end of Eggsy's scarily effective Disappointed Face. (Daisy must have nerves of steel to have withstood that look, and Roxy knows of no St. Cat's teachers capable of replicating it; boarding school must be a much-needed escape for the child.)

"If you so choose," Arthur concedes. "Your main goal is to set up surveillance on the pair of them, which your covers as an interior designer married to and in business with a builder should allow you to do. You will gain access to the place — a Loire Valley vineyard — from which Bishop conducts much of his business and at which Naomi Lewis has determined they will be married." At least she now understands Eggsy's determination to pair up with her for this particular mission; after all, she speaks French with a fluency that sounds native and knows wines from a cousin whose career as a wine merchant seemed to her, decades ago, to be the height of sophistication. She knows better than to ask in front of Arthur (still as close to humourless as it's possible to get) for details of their covers, as Merlin, to Eggsy's obvious delight, specialises in creating odd and strangely effective characters for them, including romantic backgrounds that would not, she thinks, be out of place in a Mills & Boon collection. She _does_ wonder about how he fills up his spare time.

Arthur calmly gathers up his notes on the mission. "Come to think of it, don't separate Bishop and Lewis; if the wedding gets called off, Bishop might shut up the house in France entirely. Instead, Lancelot, you and Gawain can model marital bliss for them."

Roxy eyes Merlin, who's cackling without stopping for breath, with no small concern. How he and Eggsy have become ride or die for each other, she will never know. (She completely ignores her best friend, who's creating just as much of a ruckus behind her, as he apparently cannot help joining in when Merlin laughs.) Arthur is clearly of the same mind, since he hastily rises to his feet and makes his way out of the briefing room, holding the door open for her.

*

"Just tell me one thing," she asks Eve that night when they're eating pasta that's not nearly as good as Nigella promised — Roxy resolves, at least for the dozenth time, not to believe the kitchen witch's seductive lies, particularly about anything having to do with peas — and guzzling down good Spanish red in defiance of the usual pairings. "What's the gift for the tenth anniversary?"

"Tin," Eve says after a moment's consultation of her mobile, never far from her side.

"Lord," Roxy sighs, trying to figure out how Eggsy's going to work that into their cover as he has every previous anniversary material for their paired missions.

"What do you think he's going to do?" Eve asks, scooping up another mouthful of orecchiette and ham with no evidence of displeasure. Her mouth is glossy from the cream sauce, and Roxy pushes her bowl away, ready to satisfy a different kind of hunger altogether. Even when Eve rolls her eyes, they flash beautifully, and Roxy sees no reason to deny herself. "Really, Lancelot?"

"Really, Pip," she says, drawing her wife down for a kiss, then another, until all thought of false anniversaries and ill-omened weddings is banished.

*

"Remember the last 'Wedding of the Century'?" Eggsy asks, wisely setting a double-shot espresso in front of her.

"When two of the One Direction heartthrobs got married?" She's racking her brain but can think of nothing more over the top than that production. _Dyed zebras_ , that wedding had featured. Poor defenceless things.

"Yup. Bors is claiming to be the brains behind that monstrosity, and so he's who Naomi's lookin' to hire. Wish we could be flies on _that_ wall."

Roxy's too caffeine-deprived to take equal enjoyment from the image of Bors, fastidious to the core, having to pretend to take credit for ideas that must wound him to the soul. She takes a sip, finding the espresso strong enough to lend some steel to her spine. Feeling a bit more settled, she smiles at Eggsy. "Can I pick our names for this one?"

"Sure, Rox," he says, agreeable as ever, and there's a fresh mark on his neck that indicates why he has no need of caffeine to make his eyes bright.

"Harry kept you up all night?" she asks, brushing her fingertips over the mark.

"Nah, we went down to St. Cat's for watching week to take in Daisy's ballet lessons and Cheeryble dropped us at home at midnight. _Five o'clock this morning_ , Harry wakes me up and says he'd rather fuck than sleep." Eggsy looks both tired and enormously satisfied. "Galahad the Pure, my arse."

"I believe it's _my_ arse, for the duration," she says, flashing her ring in his face, and he grins at her. "Well, you could be a Ted, I suppose, and I could be . . . Dawn?"

"Nah, you were already Dawn when we had to play principals in that shitty ballet company," Eggsy reminds her. "Fuck, those shoes hurt."

"We were only wearing them for supposed publicity photographs, not to dance in," Roxy rebuts, though it's true he had to do the hard work of holding her steadily aloft. Every line of their musculature had been sharply delineated by the minimalist costumes, and she'd admired the ripples of Eggsy's biceps and the thick strength of his thighs while being relieved at her own relative grace and thankful that she only had to hold various spine-bending poses rather than haul him about.

She takes another sip of her espresso and considers. Eve only became her personal transport specialist later that year, so her wife has probably never seen the images. She's just about to say something to that effect when Eggsy speaks again.

"I think Harry still wanks to those pics," Eggsy says dreamily, like that is something she has _ever_ wanted to know about the knight who retired at the top of his game, a legend. "Bet he'd share, if Geli asked."

"Yes, because what Kingsman needs is _more_ blurring of lines," she says, as if her own wedding hadn't been the first openly acknowledged alliance within ranks.

"Babe," Eggsy says, rolling his eyes at her hypocrisy and then getting them back to the subject at hand. "Can't be Dawn, can't be Louise, who else you been? Can't be Michelle or Daisy or Evangeline."

"Tess," she tries. "Sarah? Sally? Kate? Pippa?"

"Too close to 'Pip,' ain't it?" Good point, though no one could possibly track Kingsman through her wife's code name.

"Sadie," she says, liking it enough to say it again. "Yes. Ted and Sadie. Ted and Sadie what, though?" Her first impulse is _Dickens_ , since she's thinking of the support staff's code names already, but Eggsy jumps in with his own suggestion.

"Bailey," Eggsy says, straight-faced, as if she might have forgotten how much of that foul alcoholic offence to God and man he'd downed at her wedding in order to ask Harry to dance and then not let go for the rest of the night.

"If you blush every time your surname is spoken, you'll be rather giving the game away."

"If we _both_ blush, we'd just be cute newlyweds," he points out. "Bet you got some memories from that night that'd pink you right up."

"We're supposed to be old marrieds, not newlyweds. And in any case I'm not going to blush over my wedding night," she dismisses. "Though married sex _is_ far superior."

"Fuck, then it'll kill me if Harry 'n' me ever get round to it," Eggsy says, sounding pleased rather than daunted by the prospect.

*

"This is a little weird," Eve says under her breath as if the briefing room is some sort of hushed, sacred space. "Does Merlin even need us? Why are we here?"

Roxy can't really answer her, being mired in the same confusion. They're watching on the big projection screen as Merlin takes photographs — from architectural journals, estate-agent listings, and Kingsman's own apparently inexhaustible servers — and adjusts them digitally. All of the manipulated images in their ersatz portfolio are different but have a recognisable aesthetic to them, and Roxy's beyond impressed that Merlin's able to do so much with just his tablet, particularly when Eggsy's stream of chatter, focusing on his sister, really has not paused even once. Nor does his feeding of the wizard. Harry's newest hobby, evidently, is baking, and Eggsy's figured out how small the pieces of croissant must be in order to tempt Merlin into eating while his brain is leagues away, focused on the mission.

" _I'd_ like a croissant," Eve mutters, this time a little louder. One of her feathery black locks is brushing against Roxy's neck in the most deliciously distracting way.

"Wife-stealers have to sing for their supper," Eggsy says, not even bothering to look away from Merlin's screen, which he can see because they're snugged so tightly together.

"She's _my_ wife!" Eve says, gripping Roxy's hand with what must look like possessiveness but Roxy is sure is just hunger for all the buttery, flaky goodness just a few short steps away.

"If you want _me_ to sing, all you have to do is ask," Eggsy responds with such alacrity that Roxy knows, in her secret soul, that he's been dying to dance and that Harry (no doubt obsessing over the lamination of his dough) denied him. She knows exactly what song he's going to sing too, because he's been claiming it's Eve's signature song ever since he found out _Eve_ is short for Evangeline, and sure enough he's belting out Destiny's Child like that's what he was born to do: _I don't think you ready for this Geli, body's too bootylicious for you, babe_.

(What is a surprise is that Merlin, far from being put out that Eggsy's twirling around him without either dignity or shame, is actually grooving along, his shoulders moving to Eggsy's beat.)

"Go," Roxy whispers over her shoulder to her wife as she moves forward to engage Eggsy in the dance; Eve sees her chance and takes it, grabbing the cloth-lined tin (that for some unholy reason has the Kingsman K printed on it) and absconding with the last of the croissants. Eggsy continues his pitch-perfect rendition of "Bootylicious," flaunting his own still-impressive posterior (Roxy knows exactly why Harry Hart never stood a chance against her friend), and drops down and slowly rises back up, not even needing to grab anything to keep his balance; there's a reason he looked so right in those ballet pictures, and it wasn't Merlin's digital touch. As he's coming back up, Roxy sees him wink at Merlin, who feeds him one of the croissant bits that Eggsy tore earlier.

Eggsy chews it happily and then grabs and dips her. When she's back on her feet, balance restored, and ready to demolish half the croissants in the tin Eve stole, she heads out the door after her wife. She can't quite convince herself that Eggsy's whispering to Merlin is just a way of saving face. "Now that they're gone, got room for the chocolate croissants, guv?" 

*

Eggsy's got Naomi and Garrard eating out of his hand. He's playing up his accent to the point that it sounds put on, but they're so evidently relieved to hear English spoken as only a South Londoner could mangle it that he could be telling them the moon was made of green cheese and they'd buy it.

The Loire Valley estate is beautiful, damaged, and very close to silent; Bishop had bought it sight unseen, as a means of elevating himself, and hasn't got round to employing anyone to care for the vines or the house itself. Roxy decides to make a virtue of it. "And you might as well have what you want the way you want it," she says, gesturing at the cathedral ceiling that makes the sitting room absolutely cavernous. "No point in spending money updating something you don't much like."

"Yeah — true, true," Naomi says, crossing her legs to mimic the way Roxy's sitting, and Roxy hides her smile, recognising the sign that the woman at least is hooked. "Only thing is, yeah, we got a budget?"

Eggsy's sunny smile doesn't waver, but Roxy _knows_ him and can see that that's tripped something in his head, and she trusts his instincts, even if it turns out that he's just hearing an echo of his mother in the words. Or it could be that Garrard's purposely kept Naomi in the dark about his enormous stores of cash, but given what they've seen of the couple's apparently sincere devotion, that doesn't seem likely. "Ain't a problem," Eggsy says, not needing even one beat to recover from the surprise; "not like most folks got money to be throwin' around without lookin' where it's goin'. We can get this done so it looks fit for a queen but costs next to nothin'."

Garrard looks even more relieved than Naomi at that, reaching over and pumping Eggsy's hand. "Bloody relieved to hear that, Ted. Sunk all our savings into this place, thought it'd be as well to get away from London, what with all the family drama goin' down." Well, he certainly _sounds_ sincere, which could simply mean he's a BAFTA-calibre actor.

"Oh, dear, I hope it's nothing too bad?" Roxy interjects, just enough curiosity in her tone to invite a confidence.

Naomi clears her throat. "Nah, 'is mum's been bangin' on about what a disappointment all 'is brothers are, and then just about went mental when she 'eard we was moving to France. It's nice, actually, bein' somewhere where ain't nobody carin' what we say and we can just be together."

"Nay and me, since we was kids, been like this," Garrard says, holding up two thick fingers pressed together, and it's rather cute, actually, how Naomi abandons her proper posture to snuggle into him and he presses a kiss to the top of her head.

"Now, how'd _you_ two meet?" Naomi asks, safe in her man's arms.

Eggsy laughs and scratches the back of his neck, play-acting sheepish so flawlessly that it's no wonder Naomi looks charmed. Roxy takes a cue from her and pastes the same look on her own face. "I'd got a puppy at a shelter, thought it were a bulldog, was sittin' on top of the bloody world when he decided, on his first walk, to start barkin' at Sadie here. Tiniest li'l barks you ever did hear. An' Sadie, fooled by my devastatingly handsome face into thinkin' I knew what I was about, complimented me on being so secure in my masculinity — nah, wait, that weren't the word — babe, help?"

"I said you _must_ be secure in your virility to be toting around a pug the size of your palm, monkey," Roxy says, before smiling conspiratorially at Naomi. "What I was actually angling for was to find out if JB was yours or if you were walking him for your girlfriend."

Eggsy gapes at her. "Shut up! You ain't ever had a thing to worry about, babe. No other woman holds a candle to you." And there it is, the reason they've been best friends for all these years: he loves with his whole heart and isn't shy about letting others know how much they mean to him. Harry Hart is a very lucky bastard. So is Merlin. So is Daisy. So is she.

"Ooh, he's a righ' charmer, in't he?" Naomi says. "Bettin' you ain't got no complaints."

"No, I haven't," Roxy says, smiling at Eggsy, trying to show with her eyes alone how much she loves him back. "Let's see what we can do for you, perhaps ease some of your worry — could you give us the grand tour?"

*

"Merlin," Eggsy says, slouching unhappily in his chair like he's back to his chip-on-his-shoulder candidate days, "we've got hold of the wrong end of the stick somehow." Standing behind him, Roxy nods, and Merlin's eyes flick up to track the gesture. Merlin's tech just keeps getting better and better, and partnering with Eggsy means she gets to see most of it as soon as it's ready; she can trace every capillary in the man's eyes, count each of his eyelashes if she so wishes, even though he's in their room as a hologram rather than in the flesh. "You ain't gonna see nothin' on the clones we made of 'is laptop or mobile, or hers neither."

"It's true," she chimes in. "We went all over that house, every square foot of it, and there's no hidden rooms or locked doors. And there are no other buildings on the property. Not to mention that they consistently went for the cheaper options Eggsy outlined every time. They can't be rolling in it."

The hologram looks troubled, runs a hand over its shorn scalp. "Bors was certain, said the pattern of arms sales and deposits into that account was definitive. He's never been wrong before."

"Have _you_ looked?" Eggsy asks, such trust in his voice that it's irresistible; Roxy knows she would do anything he asked if he used that tone on her. She wonders if Harry is made of sterner stuff than her or Merlin, who's crumbling with three simple words.

"No," Merlin admits. "But I will, lad." He dredges up a smile. "If you're right and Bors is wrong, then I might be able to get round his hurt pride by pointing out that at least he won't have to talk to a pair of young ones about putting on a wedding so garish Caligula might have blanched."

"Speaking of which, I think we've found a project worth dragging Harry out of retirement for," Eggsy says, magnificently deadpan; Roxy decides it is fascinating rather than creepy how Eggsy and Merlin seem to swap expressions and gestures as if there's a grab-bag of them that sits between the pair of them. Merlin laughs and signs off, hologram blinking out of existence and leaving their room rather dimmer.

"There's nothing more for us to do right now," she says, "so we have a choice of working out, eating out, or staying in like sloths."

"My vote is all three," Eggsy says. "Thinkin' maybe a run, get the lay of the land, see a working vineyard, then stuff ourselves full of food — Harry gave me a list of things I should try, by which he prob'ly meant things I'm meant to bring back for him, the glutton — and then back here for a cuddle."

"That might be nice," she says, already stepping out of her Sadie togs and searching for her exercise clothes. Eggsy gives her an appreciative look and a completely put-on leer, then drops his jeans, which have been worn to exceptional softness (she'd put her hand on his knee when the tour of the house was over, squeezing it to spell out _nothing_ in Morse).

Their run is exactly what she needs, keeping her frustration from boiling over (she's always used physical exertion as a release valve for her emotions, and since she met Eve that's gone from a necessity to an addictive pleasure), and she's certain Eggsy knows her well enough to discern what a good idea this was. The path they're on is stunningly beautiful, and she wants, very badly, to see Eve touched by this light, drinking the wine yielded by this fertile land. "Race you back home," she calls out, and his pink and shining face brightens still further as he increases his speed.

*

Eggsy's truer to his roots than he's often given credit for, she thinks. She'd ordered gourmet delicacies and paired them with the most exceptional wines, and he'd enjoyed all the food (though he still seems to go in for quantity over quality — a tell that his days of privation made a deeper impression than he's willing to admit) but had not analysed the flavours like a proper gourmand.

Harry had spent the days apart perfecting the complex art of making macarons, and Eggsy, presented with a tin (again, Kingsman branded — was that Merlin's sense of humour?) of them, had popped a couple in his mouth and said, before he'd even had time to chew or savour them, "That's lovely, Harry, thanks," and just sagged into his man's arms right there in the hangar. Now, back at HQ and discussing the Bishop case with Bors and Merlin and Arthur, he's declaring his allegiance to the engaged pair, with whom he really did bond over their shared life experience.

"It ain't them, Arthur, I'm tellin' ya," he says, slow to drop the accent that stood him in such good stead on this case. Roxy reaches out and puts her hand over his, which he's balled into a fist. The gesture gets him to relax enough to sit back, the luxurious leather of the chair a reminder that he's earned a spot at this table, that his word means something to Kingsman. "Neither one of them has any kind of secret account. They had to turn down some of our ideas _because_ they didn't have the dosh. Plus he's in electronics, not arms, and they ain't watchin' the news to see where trouble's brewin'."

"I agree," she says before Bors can take them all through his spreadsheets again, numbing their brains and their arses. "I've no doubt the accounts show what you say they show, but how do we know that Bishop opened the account himself? Couldn't it have been one of his brothers looking for a way to shield himself? Or all of them, perhaps, resentful that the youngest was doing just fine on his own?" Her own elder brothers had never believed she'd amount to anything, and if joining the army and becoming Lancelot were ways of showing them she was not the delicate and useless flower they thought, well, she had no regrets, given how her life had turned out.

"None of the Bishop brothers travelled outside London in March of 2021, when the account was opened," Arthur said, reading from his notes. "The twelfth, to be precise, in Singapore. Accounts must be opened in person, by law."

"Couldn't have been Gary either," Eggsy says, quick as a flash though the date in question was four years ago. "Nay's sister had her sprogs on the seventh and Nay and Gary stayed with her for a couple weeks to help out." Now that he's said it, Roxy remembers being shown pictures of the twins in their Auntie Nay's arms and being expected to coo over a mobile video of Uncle Garrard burping one of the boys.

"We've not heard of any other Garrard Bishop it could be? The long-lost father, perhaps?" she asks, though she knows Merlin would have scoured records the length and breadth of the globe.

"No," Bors says shortly, scowling down at his spreadsheet as if the numbers have personally betrayed him. "Back to France for you, and I'll follow you in a few days."

"Ah, yes," Merlin says, heaving a large and hideously decorated binder onto the table. Fabric swatches are spilling out of it, some edged with lace, some with pearls. Roxy is intensely glad Merlin is on their side, if this is the level of detail to which he attends. "Everything the wedding planner to the stars needs for a first meeting. I wouldn't send any agent in unarmed."

There are times when Roxy doesn't have to puzzle over why Merlin is clearly her best friend's true soulmate.

*

"Colours are up to you, of course," Roxy says, back in Bishop's sitting room, "but you've got the space, and this wall could accommodate a colour with a dash of drama. I'd keep this wall bare but build shelves into the side walls."

"Somethin' like this, yeah, babe?" Eggsy says, pulling a pencil from behind his ear to start sketching. "An' I'd say that with a ceiling this high, you could do somethin' unusual, like a coffered ceiling." He catches her eyes and says, deliberately, "Made of tin."

She _knew_ he was going to work the tenth-anniversary material into the mission somehow, and points go to him for being so creative about it. "That sounds lovely, monkey."

Naomi is already nodding along whilst Garrard is craning his neck to see what Eggsy's drawn. "Yeah, I like that. A kinda royal purple'd be nice, like a grape colour, for the vineyard, right?"

"That's brill," Eggsy says approvingly. "Jottin' that down. What you think, Gary?"

"Yeah, sure," Gary says, evidently content to leave such decisions to the so-called professionals and his fiancée. "Whatever you like, babe."

"We can leave space for whatever souvenirs you pick up on your honeymoon," Roxy says, redirecting the conversational flow. "Remember Singapore, monkey?"

"Every last second of it, babe," Eggsy says promptly, kissing her hand and then explaining for the others' benefit. "Sadie had a hankerin' to see it when she wasn't wasted like the time she toured Asia with her uni mates. An' I'd never been further'n Dublin, so." There's no guilty start from Garrard, no glances shot from one to the other; they simply cannot be the ones who set up that account.

Still, she has to keep the conversation flowing. "Do you know where you'll be going?"

"Ooh, I ain't eager to get on a plane again," Naomi says, clutching her stomach. "Right 'ere's a place people come from all over to see, so right 'ere is good enough for me."

"Not good enough for my mum, though," Garrard says, voice laced with anger. "Refusin' to get on a plane or even a Eurostar to come visit, makin' excuses about bein' too old to travel. Wasn't too old when we all chipped in for her sixtieth and sent her to Malaysia."

"Four years is a long time, though, babe," Naomi says, trying to soothe him. She cuddles into his arms and he relaxes instantly. "She'll come around, you'll see."

Roxy nods, knowing that Eggsy's sharp enough to have caught on that Aileen Bishop (née Morrison) was, four years ago, in the vicinity of Singapore. "I'm sure she will. My parents were . . . less than enthused when I brought Ted home —" she starts, trusting Eggsy will pick up the story.

"Thought I was a hoodlum, didn't they? Some chav comin' to take their princess away," Eggsy says agreeably, distracting them so Roxy can text Merlin to get Aileen's birthdate. _Aileen Morrison born 5 March 1961_ flashes on her screen almost instantaneously. "An' now, all we hear is what good parents we'd be and why ain't we popped out any sprogs yet. Course, they only changed their minds about me once we redid their house real nice. Maybe you oughta help her with her work or somethin', Nay, get 'er on your side?"

"I been runnin' in and out of that flat since I was only small. If she don't like me by now, dunno what'll change her mind," Naomi dismisses, then spills the information Eggsy was angling for. "Sides, she ain't had a job, proper like, since Gary were small, an' she were a shop assistant."

"She loves ya, Nay. Ain't that. She's just . . . changed, is all." Evidently so, if she could start an arms-running empire, open an offshore account in her son's name to keep her own hands looking clean, and carry on the charade of her little life for years.

*

"Whilst under our surveillance, Aileen Bishop died of an ischaemic stroke. External authorities only found her a week later," Arthur reports primly. "After her assets were seized, of course, and her contacts traced and put away. Very satisfactory work, agents."

She doesn't miss how Eggsy's face tightens and his eyes dart to Merlin, looming in the corner. It doesn't feel like a proper ending to her either. Then she sees that he's pressed his lips together to keep his emotions in check and remembers that Michelle had died the same way. To be fair, the present Arthur never knew her, but still, she would have thought that Merlin would fight for a different cover-up. She casts a baleful glance his way and he nods, deliberately, telling her — telling them both — that it's the truth. Eggsy sits back then, and Roxy holds his hand under the table. Michelle at least had got a big noisy party for her fiftieth birthday sprung on her by both her kids after a day that started with breakfast in bed and a trip to Kew Gardens, and from Eggsy's report, she'd had the happiest day she could remember. Four months later, she'd died on the day Eggsy was due back from Bahrain, and Daisy had refused to speak to anyone but him for weeks after. It's illogical, but to hear that a literal arms dealer died the same way feels like a slap in the face to her, and must feel far worse to the son who'd loved her.

"We'll have Kay and Bedivere clean up those on the fringes of her network," Arthur continues, shuffling his papers together and tapping the edges so that they lie in a neat pile. "Lancelot, your next mission awaits."

Eggsy squeezes her hand back, grounding her, and she lifts her chin and says, "Yes, sir."

*

"Remember the case with Gary and Nay?" Eggsy asks. "From almost a year ago? They sent us a weddin' invitation."

She's not exactly surprised Eggsy hadn't disabled the Ted Dickens email account after the last messages offering apologies for not being able to work on the house, given the understandable delay caused by the unexpected death of the client's mother; Eggsy's always been soft-hearted. "And you want to go?"

"Yeah, why not, it'd be good to go back and have more o' that bubbly you liked so much," Eggsy says. "Ain't like it's a massive trek, we could be there and back in a day."

True enough. "That's fine," she says, already thinking of wedding gifts.

"I'll take care of everything," he promises, already backing away with a grin on his face. "All you gotta do is show up and throw every other girl in the shade."

"No one outshines the bride," she says, but she does adore how openly partisan he is.

"Hey, Sadie," he says, "catch." She can't identify the object he lobs at her until it's in her hands, but she really should have known it would be the little velvet box with her ring.

Eggsy's transport specialist, Emanuel, is the one that flies them to France, and though she's heard that Naomi ended up not hiring Bors, she's still bracing herself for a carnival of colour and sound. Instead, the ceremony is solemn and quiet, the late-afternoon sun drenching everything in gold. Eggsy keeps one arm around her, crying unabashedly because he's a fool for weddings, and she enjoys the restfulness of the day. That feeling of serenity disappears the minute the music starts up at the reception, as Eggsy, his eyes wiped dry, is evidently determined to seize every minute he can get on the dance floor.

He's got his nose in her hair when she kisses his jaw, happy to be in his arms, to be partnering with him once again. She gets a fond squeeze by way of thanks, and then he's leading her away and into a car. Emanuel is sitting in the driver's seat and seems to need no directions other than Eggsy's nod. She snuggles up to him, liking the sound of him humming the song they were just dancing to.

She's pleasantly drowsy by the time they arrive — at the auberge, instead of the private airport she'd expected — and Emanuel, carrying a suitcase Eggsy must have packed for her, the sneak, follows her up the steps to the room they had last time. "Lancelot," Emanuel says, setting the case down and handing her an ornate iron key. He waits, so she unlocks the door despite not seeing Eggsy coming up the stairs behind them.

It takes her a moment to understand that Eggsy's not coming, not if he's arranged for Eve to be in the room, a bottle of champagne in the silver chiller on the marble-topped bedside table. Eve is sprawled out on the bed, reading, her jeans and sleeveless silk blouse more alluring than fancy lingerie on any other woman, her broad smile lighting up the room. "Welcome to your second honeymoon, Roxy," she says.

"Second verse, same as the first?" Roxy teases, pouncing on the bed to kneel over her wife, who's rolled to her back and wound soft arms around her neck.

"I think we might be able to do even better this time around," Eve says, nipping at her mouth. Roxy dips her head and kisses her fully, relishing the warm wet slide of tongues and the way her body heats up just from this.

"Practice does make perfect," Roxy agrees, and kisses her again. "And I'm ready for this Geli."


End file.
